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THE CURE FOR INSOMNIA
IN THE EMERALD CITY
It's so satisfying to be back in the soulful city of Seattle, sitting in a cafe, enjoying a great cup of coffee, listening to the rain.
On the wall across from me is a Michael Dailey original, one of his spectacular landscape-inspired abstractions. I've always loved his work. These color field paintings are particularly arresting, like desert sunsets, yet somehow evocative of the Pacific Northwest. Similar to Mark Rothko, Georg Gudni and Hiroshi Sugimoto, Dailey was able to conjure atmospheric windows to a misty horizon, conveying a sense of longing for something just out of reach.
On the wall across from me is a Michael Dailey original, one of his spectacular landscape-inspired abstractions. I've always loved his work. These color field paintings are particularly arresting, like desert sunsets, yet somehow evocative of the Pacific Northwest. Similar to Mark Rothko, Georg Gudni and Hiroshi Sugimoto, Dailey was able to conjure atmospheric windows to a misty horizon, conveying a sense of longing for something just out of reach.
HOT FUN IN THE SUMMERTIME
Even as we enjoy these winter rains, we're already looking forward to this summer's tours and residencies in the San Francisco Bay Area (June 1-30), Pacific Northwest (July 10-20), and California Coast (July 21-26)! Plenty of workshops, concerts, festivals, club appearances and more.
RAIN by Don Paterson
I love all films that start with rain:
rain, braiding a windowpane
or darkening a hung-out dress
or streaming down her upturned face;
one big thundering downpour
right through the empty script and score
before the act, before the blame,
before the lens pulls through the frame
to where the woman sits alone
beside a silent telephone
or the dress lies ruined on the grass
or the girl walks off the overpass,
and all things flow out from that source
along their fatal watercourse.
However bad or overlong
such a film can do no wrong,
so when his native twang shows through
or when the boom dips into view
or when her speech starts to betray
its adaptation from the play,
I think to when we opened cold
on a starlit gutter, running gold
with the neon of a drugstore sign
and I'd read into its blazing line:
forget the ink, the milk, the blood –
all was washed clean with the flood
we rose up from the falling waters
the fallen rain's own sons and daughters
and none of this, none of this matters.
LOVE
"I have loved to the point of madness;
That which is called madness,
That which to me, is the only sensible way to love."
—Françoise Sagan
"Love is an irresistible desire
to be irresistibly desired."
—Robert Frost
"Love all, trust a few,
do wrong to none."
—William Shakespeare
"When love is in excess, it brings a man
no honor nor worthiness."
—Euripides
"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts,
there can be no more hurt, only more love."
—Mother Theresa
"The ultimate choice for a man,
in as much as he is given to transcend himself,
is to create or destroy, to love or to hate."
—Erich Fromm
"I love lamp."
—Brick Tamland
REFLECTIONS IN RAIN
THE SINGING HOUSE
LEARNED FROM A RAINSTORM
"There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything."
—Ghost Dog
THE VOICE OF THE RAIN ~Walt Whitman | Leaves of Grass
AND who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower,
Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated:
I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain,
Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea,
Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form'd, altogether changed,
and yet the same,
I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe,
And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn;
And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin,
and make pure and beautify it
(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering,
Reck'd or unreck'd, duly with love returns.)
WHERE BREATHING IS PRAYER ~Wendell Berry
Sit and be still
until in the time
of no rain you hear
beneath the dry wind's
commotion in the trees
the sound of flowing
water among the rocks,
a stream unheard before,
and you are where
breathing is prayer.
THE CHILD WITHIN
The Child sees mystery everywhere. Maturity is a narrowing of the imagination. Within each of us is the child we once were; this child within is the foundation upon which we build who we are and what we will become.
THE NOIR CITY
The Noir City is a mysterious labyrinth of smoky bars, lounges and nightclubs, blind alleys, abandoned factories, shadowy train platforms, fog-filled parks, austere detective agencies and darkened gambling dens. An ominous urban maze where it's always night and it always rains.
EMBRACE THE RAIN
Be still sad heart and cease repining;
Behind the clouds the sun is shining,
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life a little rain must fall.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Behind the clouds the sun is shining,
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life a little rain must fall.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
HONG KONG IN THE RAIN 1952
RAIN TOWN
MEMENTO MORI
"The human animal is a beast that must die.
If he's got money, he buys and buys and buys
everything he can, in the crazy hope that
one of those things will be life-everlasting,
which it can never be."
—Big Daddy Pollitt
"It's too bad she won't live!
But then again, who does?"
—Gaff
"You don't need anybody
Nobody needs you
Don't cry, old man, don't cry
Everybody dies."
—Randy Newman
LOVE
"We love Nastassja Kinski. She's a gifted actress
and the most beautiful woman in film today."
—Francis Ford Coppola
"I love Billie Holiday. Her music is so soulful and sad.
It's the most beautiful thing I know."
—Nastassja Kinski
"Love? Don't threaten me with love, baby.
Let's just go walking in the rain."
—Billie Holiday
TIME by Gilmore, Mason, Waters and Wright
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say
IMAGINE A PUDDLE
“Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in -- an interesting hole I find myself in -- fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it...so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise.” ~Douglas Adams
PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE
FIRE CITY
I had a wonderful time this week in Los Angeles—recording, visiting with friends and enjoying the rainy weather along the coast.
FIRE CITY, the supernatural thriller created by Brian Lubocki & Michael Hayes, is awesome!
I'm sworn to secrecy about the specific actors and certain details, but what I *can* say is this: from concept to script to cast and crew, they're making all the right decisions.
One of those great decisions was selecting the talented film composer Ryan Leach, whose moody and inventive score serves the FIRE CITY narrative beautifully. He pairs ethereal string voicings with menacingly low pedal tones to create a dark aural atmosphere. And at the heart of the work is a series of hauntingly plaintive flugelhorn themes that grow gradually more insistent as rhythmic figures emerge in the orchestration. The effect is hypnotic! Check it out here.
Heartfelt thanks to Mike and Brian for inviting me to play a small part in a big, very cool project. Thanks to you both, and to Pamela and the girls, too for the hospitality. It was a great hang.
~DM
FireCity on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/FireCity
Future website:
http://www.firecity.com/
MAL DU PAYS
BAPTISM
Why did he love storms, what was the meaning of his excitement when the door sprang open and the rain wind fled rudely up the stairs, why had the simple task, of shutting the windows of an old house seemed fitting and urgent, why did the first watery notes of a storm wind have for him the unmistakable sound of good news, cheer, glad tidings?
~John Cheever, "The Swimmer"